


maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray

by piperreynas



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: (but not graphic), Gen, Minor Character Death, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 10:32:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16617284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piperreynas/pseuds/piperreynas
Summary: maybe, if kaz were older, he would’ve noticed the dark circles under jordie’s bloodshot eyes, or the way mama’s hands tremble when she reaches over to hand him his fork. but he is only eight (almost nine!) so he pays no mind, and instead watches his mother patiently cut his waffles into pieces, something she hasn’t done since he was three.a character study; pre-canon





	maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray

**Author's Note:**

> i know kaz is a self-professed asshole but thinking about baby kaz makes my heart hurt

_when he is three, kaz gets sick and stays sick for a week. most of what he remembers appears to him in a blur: the way the doctor's foul tonics seemed to linger on his tongue for days after he'd taken them; a glimpse of jordie's eyes over his mother's shoulder; papa, by his bed at all hours, the feeling of his cool hand on kaz's forehead, the sound of his off-key humming, a glimpse of him puttering around kaz's room setting toys in their proper places on the windowsill because neither of his sons had ever had the patience for it._

_the only concrete memory he has of his illness is of the aftermath. he remembers the day his fever breaks most vividly, remembers papa sobbing, "thank Ghezen, thank Ghezen," over and over again, rememembers mama holding his hand, whiteknuckled, her eyes watering, remembers jordie's bright grin._

_"what happened?" he croaks, attempting to sit up and wincing when he catches sight of the sun, still much too bright to look at. his room looks like something out of a nightmare, made unrecognizable by bizarre shadows, appearing hazy and distorted at times, highlighted in sharp focus at others._

_papa smiles and it seems to light up the whole room. "you scared us, kiddo."_

_kaz frowns. "i'm sorry," he says, half delirious still, his bottom lip wavering._

_papa rests a hand on his cheek and then reaches for a pillow to fluff absentmindedly. "it's not your fault," he says, quietly, mindful of kaz's headache and his confusion, "just promise not do it again?"_

_kaz isn't entirely sure what he has or hasn't done but he nods anyway. "you promise too?" he mumbles into his newly-straightened sheets._

_papa's smile grows impossibly wider; he leans over to kiss kaz's forehead. "promise," he whispers. when kaz drifts into sleep again, he is smiling._

 

_._

four days after papa stops coming home, mama makes waffles for breakfast, using the good flour and the white sugar that she saves for Important Guests.

jordie finishes his meal in around three minutes, somehow managing to look somber as he all but drowns his waffles in syrup, then trudges out to go milk the cows; mama's waffles remain untouched and grow cold because she spends the next half hour making sure kaz has enough syrup and that his bites of waffle aren't too big for him to eat. 

maybe, if kaz were older, he would’ve noticed the dark circles under jordie’s bloodshot eyes, or the way mama’s hands trembled when she reached over to hand him his fork; but he is only eight (almost nine!) so he pays no mind to the gloom that seems to hover over the farm like a cloud, and turns instead to watch his mother patiently cut his waffles into pieces, something she hasn’t done since he was three.

“mama?” he asks, reaching across the table for his favorite wooden horse. his mother hums and spears a bit of waffle for him on the end of his fork. he takes a bite, then asks, “when is papa coming home?”

mama makes a strangled noise, then says nothing, and kaz says nothing too because he understands that sometimes Adults (like mama and papa) need Time to Think. the only audible sound in the kitchen for the next minute is the clip-clop of wood against wood, and mama’s hitching breaths, the only evidence that she’d been close to crying at all.

when she answers, “i don't know, love,” her voice is steady and her eyes are dry. “finish your food," she continues, "the eggs need to be collected.”

so kaz finishes his waffles and heads out to the chicken coop to find jordie there already, staring pensively down at the hens. kaz calls his name and jordie jumps, watches detachedly as his basket (still empty, thank Ghezen) falls to the ground.

kaz frowns. “are you okay?”

jordie lets out a strained laugh and reaches over to ruffle his hair a little too hard. this is meant to be a yes, kaz knows, but it feels wrong. “did you need something?” jordie asks, reaching over to pick up the basket.

“mama sent me out to get the eggs.”

“well then, you can rest easy. i’ll get them.” jordie smiles, a beat too late.

kaz frowns. “oookay.”

“oookay,” jordie says mockingly, and this time when he grins it seems real; kaz decides that it’s probably okay to ask his question.

“where’s papa?”

jordie’s smile falls. “i don’t know.”

“oh,” kaz says, frowning again. “does mama know?”

jordie makes a strange noise, something between a laugh and a sob. “i don’t think anyone does.”

“...okay. is he coming back?”

jordie presses his lips together, straightens, as though bracing himself for a blow; his eyes are wet. “go back inside, kaz,” he says, flatly, and kaz does.

 

.

 

two weeks after papa stops coming home, mama and jordie sit him down to Talk about something Very Important. “i know you’ve been wondering about papa,” mama says, taking his hands in hers, voice solemn, eyes wide.

kaz’s apprehension disappears. “did you find him?” he asks, grinning.

mama wavers. “not quite,” she says slowly, which she’s never done. ( _decisive_ , papa had called her, _fiery_.) “papa...papa isn’t coming back, love.”

kaz frowns. “why not?”

“because, he...well--” mama trails off, looking to jordie, before she seems to remember that jordie is no less a child than kaz is. she steels herself, but before she can say anything, jordie cuts in with,

“papa’s dead.”

kaz wrinkles his nose. “dead?”

“yeah,” jordie says, “dead.” mama places a hand on jordie’s arm, attempts to cut him off, but he shakes it off.

"what's that?" 

jordie laughs harshly. “remember when bernard fainted in the field?” kaz nods. “well, he didn’t faint, he had a stroke and the doctor couldn’t fix him so he died and we had to put him in the ground; that’s what happened to papa. he’s not coming back, because he’s in the ground.” kaz is crying now, jordie is yelling, and mama has her head in her hands; her shoulders are trembling.

“stop lying!” kaz shouts, trying to drown out jordie and the sounds of mama’s sobs, “you’re making mama sad!”

“i’m not lying!” jordie yells back, raising his voice even more because he’s a bully and kaz hates him more than he’s ever hated anyone in his life because his head hurts, and mama is crying, and papa isn’t coming back, but he can’t blame jordie for any of it.

 

.

 

six months after papa stops coming home, mama faints in the field too; the village doctor cannot wake her. the next six months pass in a haze of confusion and exhaustion because, after all that had happened with papa, jordie doesn't have the heart to tell him mama isn't coming home and so kaz wakes even earlier every day to make up for mama's absence, tries to help jordie milk the cows and muck the stables and herd the sheep. their exhaustion-induced bubble lasts for six months until the bank sells the farm because the harvest is weak and jordie's always been terrible at math.

kaz doesn’t understand any of what's happening, partly because he's too tired to pay attention to much of anything, and partly because he'd never had much reason to pay attention to these sorts of things in the first place. he says as much to jordie, who sighs and says, “i’ve already explained this to you five times.

kaz pouts. “well it’s not my fault you’re bad at explaining things!”

jordie sighs again, deeply. “fine. but i'm not explaining again, okay?” he says, just as he has every other time kaz has asked him to explain; kaz nods. “so. mama and papa took money from the bank to buy the farm, but they didn’t finish paying the bank back before they died, so the bank made us sell the farm so they’d get their money back.”

kaz frowns. “but why’d they need the money? the farm is theirs.”

“no it wasn’t."

“yes it was!”

“well it doesn’t matter!” jordie cries, viciously shoving the last of their clothes into their father’s favorite satchel. “the bank says it’s their farm so we have to leave!”

kaz slumps. “that’s stupid.”

jordie barks out a laugh. “yeah, i know.”

“where are we going?”

“ketterdam.”

kaz’s eyes widen so far that it almost hurts. “the capital?” jordie hums. “will it be fun?”

jordie shrugs. “don’t know; probably not at first. but eventually; after i make us some money.”

“how?”

“business,” jordie says, with a relish that seems disproportionate to the topic at hand. kaz thinks business sucks; business sent papa away from home, made him work until he was too tired to play.

“are we gonna be any good at it?"

jordie grins. “absolutely. i’m the best at _everything_.”

kaz rolls his eyes. “sure,” he says, and jordie laughs, bright and loud.

"don't worry," jordie says, ruffling his hair to make him scowl. "we'll be alright. i'll make sure of it."

 

.

 

 _johannes brekker is no less prepared for his second son than his first. this would normally be cause for panic, but after two weeks of all-nighters he's much too exhausted to care. he says as much to eva, quietly as he bounces baby kaz up and down, and eva glares at him. "you're_   _exhausted?" she repeats flatly, scowling, and johannes, in an act of great generosity, he thinks, doesn't point out that she looks no more threatening than a wet kitten. "_ you're  _exhausted?"_

_"you'll wake him," johannes says primly and eva rolls her eyes and slumps back against her veritable mountain of pillows, petulantly. kaz shifts in arms, waves his little hands about at imaginary ghosts and johannes hums noncomitally. when he looks back up again, eva is smiling at the two of them, utterly content, and for a moment, all is quiet._

_naturally, that is the moment that jordie chooses to thunder up the stairs. "mama!" he yells, "papa!"_ _kaz does not wake, mercifully, although not for lack of trying._

_"_ _we're in here, darling," eva calls, and the sound of jordie's footsteps echoes around the house ominously until he climbs up onto their bed gracelessly._

_"are you better now?" jordie asks, poking his mother's cheek and frowning in a poor imitation of the doctor._

_"oh, lots," eva says, gently batting away his fingers and carding a hand through his messy hair. "how was your stay with uncle lucas?"_

_"he's got more sheep than we do," says jordie, pulling locks of eva's hair up at odd angles. eva gives johannes a wry look over their son's shoulder. johannes smiles back, as one is wont to do when faced with eva brekker, and shuffles over to sit on the end of the bed. jordie immediately abandons his efforts in favor of crawling over to his brother, managing to get tangled in nearly all of their sheets along the way._ _"_

_hi kaz!" jordie chirps, planting a sloppy kiss on the baby's large forehead. johannes raises a hand to pull him away gently lest he subject all of them to another restless night, but kaz only wrinkles his nose in his sleep and turns away._ _eva shuffles over to curl into his side, at ease in a way she hasn't been for months, and johannes presses a smile into her hair._

_they will be alright, johannes thinks, watching jordie grin down at his brother, so long as they have each other._

**Author's Note:**

> * there's no definite canon as far as kaz's parents are concerned (that i know of anyway), but my headcanon is that papa and mama rietveld met in shu han (where mama rietveld is from) and moved to kerch after they were married and jordie and kaz lived a very happy life on their farm with their cows and dogs and sheep, etc. before their father's accident  
> 
> * "bernard" is not a human, but a dog that i made up just for this fic; his name is german and it means "brave as a bear"  
> 
> * title from "wouldn't it be nice" by the beach boys  
> 
> * find me on [tumblr!](http://kettvrdams.tumblr.com)


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